New York City real estate lawyer gets prison time for stealing $4.5M from clients

Martin Dunn (c.), the former editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News, leaves Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday. Dunn and his wife were two of many victims of Luigi Rosabianca. (Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News)

A disbarred real estate lawyer was sentenced to prison on Monday in Manhattan for stealing $4.5 million from clients.

Luigi Rosabianca, 41, former head of Rosabianca & Associates, got four to 12 years behind bars in exchange for his plea to multiple counts of grand larceny.

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Starting in 2013, Rosabianca began stealing money from real estate transactions that was kept in an escrow account and in two other accounts he had access to.

One of his victims was former Daily News editor-in-chief Martin Dunn, who was ripped off for $630,000 by Rosabianca while his wife was gravely ill with cancer in 2013.

Dunn, in a statement to the court, said he felt like the former attorney, a friend of his, had exploited his vulnerable state.

"This was a very painful, distressing experience," Dunn said. He and his wife were paid back $455,000 weeks before she died.

Rosabianca's refund to Dunn was taken from another of his seven victims, who was mentally ill and unable to care for herself, prosecutors said.

"Luigi Rosabianca targeted and preyed upon vulnerable clients, whether that person was suffering from a serious mental illness, caring for a sick spouse, or simply living in a different country," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.

"He gained his clients' trust before raiding funds entrusted to him for safekeeping."

Rosabianca got choked up as he apologized before getting shipped upstate.

"I realize I hurt a lot of people and for that I am sorry," he said.

His attorney Robert Schalk insisted that Rosabianca has "been contrite since day one."

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"He will pay back restitution owed when once again he returns to be a productive member of society," he added.

Justice Maxwell Wiley referenced the sadness and grief Rosabianca had caused before handing down the sentence.

"The purpose of my sentence today is punishment, pure and simple," the judge said.